. A threatened strike by 50,000 members of the Culinary Workers Union in Las Vegas beginning Friday would cost 34 gambling establishments on the Strip and downtown more than $300 million in its first month, union representatives estimated today.

Union analyst Ken Liu stated Caesars Home entertainment’s revenues would be slashed by $115 million prior to interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, while MGM Resorts International would lose $200 million.

The 2 business own most of the resorts on the Strip and employ almost 40,000 union employees, mostly mixed drink servers, bartenders, housekeepers, food servers, porters, bellmen, cooks and other kitchen area employees.

About 20 percent of the union workers are employed by Penn National Video Gaming, Golden Entertainment and Boyd Gaming.

Their contracts expire Friday.

Almost half of the membership took part in balloting earlier this month to license union leadership to require a strike, voting 99 percent in favor.

Under their existing agreement, employees got annual raises, which include income and benefits, of 2.2 percent, Culinary Workers Union spokesperson Bethany Khan said.

Under a proposed new five-year agreement, the union is looking for annual raises of 4 percent and added defenses for employees, including a panic button for maids to alert authorities if they are under pressure.

MGM spokesperson Mary Hynes and Caesars representative Rich Broome stated today they were positive casino operators would reach an equally beneficial deal with the union and avoid a strike.

The last time Culinary Employee Union members staged a citywide work stoppage remained in 1984, when 15,000 employees went on a 67-day strike. Individual properties have actually likewise had work interruptions, most notably a more than six-year strike in the 1990s at the Frontier.